


it's tight enough to choke

by youngkkang (Marauder)



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Break Up, Established Choi Seungcheol | S.Coups/Yoon Jeonghan, Friends With Benefits, M/M, Minor Kim Mingyu/Lee Jihoon | Woozi, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-02 20:02:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16311791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marauder/pseuds/youngkkang
Summary: He’s half asleep when he says it. It escapes from him like a fish writhing from a net, wiggles its way out. He only hopes Jeonghan is tired enough not to read into it.“Thank you for listening to me, Jihoon. I know you don’t have any real emotions, but I really love you.”“I love you too.”





	it's tight enough to choke

**Author's Note:**

> For best results listen to Hard Feelings/Loveless by Lorde. (Title from Cruel Ways by Drowners)
> 
> Chapter 2 coming soon!

They meet the summer Jihoon moves into his own apartment, getting used to the idea of living alone, of having his own space. He’s just finished school, and he has an internship, and he has time for himself and everything feels too easy. His afternoons for a while are spent with the sun softly beaming through his open windows and music from his keyboard dancing its way out.

It’s a little minimalistic, the apartment. Mingyu and Junhui come through a few times in the first few days and make passing comments about how nice and plain it is. From anyone else it would be an insult, but they all love the white walls and black furniture for the same simple reasons.

After less than a week all of the boxes are gone, because no one else is going to put them away if not him, and his stupid little starter apartment starts to feel a little bit like a home. His bookcases are only half full and his bed sits on the ground, and he doesn’t have any food in his fridge except for the bare necessities.

He thinks that Mingyu is going to insert himself into that empty space, but it’s full enough for him.

Jihoon’s grateful he has a friend in the area who can bother him to do the usual things, so his days aren’t just music notes stacked up against each other. He’s been known to hardly even realize he’s lonely until his friends show up to rescue him. That’s how it’s been since college, when he would spend entire weekends alone in his room until Soonyoung would drag him out by his earlobes and he would try not to act as grateful as he felt.

There’s a knock on his door the Friday after he moves in, a foreign sound. Mingyu just walks in with his key, Jun’s not visiting again until the next day, and the landlord’s hard raps are foundation-cracking. This, though, a hollow and gentle knock, disrupts the movie playing on the tv only barely.

He jumps up, tip-toeing over some music sheets that he _swears_ he’s set up meticulously and makes his way to the door. Maybe he should have taken a look through the peephole, maybe that would have prevented him from opening the door so quickly, the smiling face, the long hair, holding a warm bowl.

Maybe that would have changed things altogether.

“Hey! I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Jeonghan. I live down the hall.”

Jihoon smiles, because that’s all he can really bring himself to do, can’t find the words to respond intelligently (which is just great, Jihoon, calls himself a writer, pathetic). After a blink from the man on the other side, he steps to the side to let him in, extending an arm in presentation.

“I’m Jihoon,” he manages to say, voice small.

He’s never been good about meeting people, always been a little bit wary of the process, though he does recognize that he technically does invite Jeonghan in, in more ways than one. He does get over himself after a moment, after watching Jeonghan’s pony tail whip back and forth as he brings the dessert over to Jihoon’s counter, makes the decision to collect himself the second the door shuts.

“I’ve been on vacation for a little bit, so I must’ve missed when you moved in. The landlord told me that there would be someone new here and I wanted to stop by. How was the move?” Jeonghan is friendly and excitable. Jihoon isn’t completely sure what to do with it, though considering his best friends he probably should.

“It went well, thank you,” Jihoon says, a little stilted, formal. “How long have you lived here?”

“Only about a year,” Jeonghan is uncovering the bowl, wrapped as if there was a chance Jihoon wouldn’t let him in (would anyone hesitate to let Jeonghan in?) and setting things aside. “Have you had lunch yet?”

Jihoon looks over at the clock on the wall that he knows is slow by an hour (it reads 11:50), looks down at a paper bowl of granola on his keyboard. “I haven’t.”

“I haven’t either. I made pork bulgogi and rice if you wanted to eat with me. Don’t worry, there’s plenty.”

Jihoon grabs the one set of plates in his mostly empty cabinets, sets down his nicest (and only) cutlery on his table that sits on the line in between his open kitchen, wobbles on the uneven floor, but he doesn’t mind. He learns about Jeonghan’s job as a vocal coach and how he teaches music to kids at the local elementary school just because he loves it so much.

Jeonghan talks about his boyfriend and Jihoon lets it roll off him, acts like because he’s been out for a few years that other people being comfortable with their sexuality isn’t jarring. He acts like he’s used to meeting new people who are okay with just saying these kinds of things to strangers, acts like his little heart doesn’t lurch at it.

“Oh, what’s his name?” Jihoon says, like his lungs aren’t stretching thin in his chest.

“Seungcheol,” Jeonghan says, smiling massively. “We’ve been together for three years almost!”

“Congratulations,” and he's deadpan, but he's gentle.

“Yeah, we’re really happy,” Jeonghan says, and Jihoon can’t make any sweeping judgements because he just met this person, but he looks like he really means it, so he takes it at face-value. And because he takes it at face value, he can’t help but imagine what it would be like to have a relationship _like that_ , even though he doesn’t know what their relationship is like at all.

“That’s really great, I’m glad. I’m sort of starting new here, with the internship and the apartment, that kind of stuff.”

“This is your first time living alone?” Jeonghan asks, picking up some pork and feeding it into his mouth. He chews silently, mouth closed, Jihoon’s grateful for Jeonghan’s politeness despite his invasion into his home. “Like, besides going to school?”

“Well even in school I had roommates,” Jihoon says, because after a while, he’s loosened up, because that’s what food does (which is precisely what Mingyu’s always said anyway). “So this is the first time I have a space to myself, really.”

“Do you like it?”

Jihoon snorts into his food, eliciting an exasperated laugh from Jeonghan. “I’ve only been living here for like a week.”

“I’m sorry, do you snort when you laugh?” Jeonghan’s eyes are wide and entertained, mouth spreading out into a smile that he can’t help.

“No!” Jihoon says, feeling his face turning a deep red, creeping up his neck and to his ears.

Jeonghan’s smile softens, almost understanding. He drops the snort thing, which Jihoon is grateful for but is almost positive that he’s going to bring up again once they get closer. That seems like an inevitability, is the most jarring thing, that Jeonghan doesn’t feel like a person who walks into a life just to walk right out. Jihoon can tell he’s going to stay, just for a little bit. He welcomes it.

“Well, I hope you like living by yourself. It’s not as bad as people say, especially if you like having alone-time, which you look like you do.”

“You live alone?”

Jeonghan nods, setting his utensils down. “Yeah, well Seungcheol and I live apart, though we spend a lot of our time at each other’s places. It’s nice having a space to go back to, though, when you want to be alone. Until I get married or something I should kind of treasure that kind of alone time, you know?”

“Yeah I guess,” he says, though he’s never really thought of it that way. Marriage isn’t really something he’s put much thought into. The concept scares him, and it’s not like he has any prospective callers.

“God,” Jeonghan says, squinting at his watch and looking over at Jihoon’s wall clock, “I’ve got to get going actually. Feel free to keep reheating the food for the next few days. I live in 7D when you want to give me my bowl back and I’m usually home, since I usually do work from there and all.”

“Yes of course,” Jihoon says, body stuttering as he stands up. He extends his arm again, this time leading Jeonghan to his door. “Thank you for the food and the welcome.”

“Absolutely no problem,” Jeonghan’s eyes close with his bright smile when he leaves, waving and leaving like he doesn’t want to. “Make sure you fix your clock, though. That could really fuck you up.”

Jihoon takes a minute after he closes the door behind Jeonghan, restrains himself from peeking through the hole at Jeonghan’s swaying pony-tail, decides Jeonghan is going to be a good friend of his, decides he’s glad he moved so far away from home. He decides all of this, doesn’t think about the consequences, doesn’t see any.

The whole floor smells like the pork bulgogi and Jihoon doesn’t switch his clock to the right time just yet, but he considers it just for a moment.

 

 

Jihoon has memories of freshman year when they’d be in their shared kitchen area making food that made them feel a little less homesick (because food does that), and Jun would treat the whole room like it was his own personal dance studio. Junhui’s always been like this, though, bouncing off walls, spreading passion all over the room.

At the beginning, Jihoon wasn’t sure he would be able to handle the energy that Junhui brought to the table, or rather that _Soonyoung_ introduced to the table during their first week of classes. Soonyoung and Jihoon had been in the same floor during orientation and more or less became attached at the hip, because that’s the way things happen in college. And his relationship with Junhui fell into that similarly. Junhui’s become such a constant in his life that after four years it’s hard to imagine a life without him.

Jihoon is splayed along his couch while Junhui dances around the apartment, the both of them smiling.

“This place looks so fantastic, dude. It’s really growing on me.”

“You’ve seen it so many times at this point,” Jihoon says. He feeds a small handful of crackers into his mouth. “Sit down and stay a while, I don’t get you for much longer.”

Junhui huffs, sitting on Jihoon’s legs that take up the entire couch. “Part of me doesn’t even want to go back to China.”

“Oh, come on, you have a really good job lined up. And you know your brother misses you,” Jihoon says. He plays with his own fingers, because of course he wants him to stay in South Korea. Even with Junhui living outside the city with Minghao, Jihoon misses him. He can’t imagine not being able to see him again after a few months, the way it would go after breaks in university.

“But I’ll be so far away from everybody,” Jun sprawls over the armrest, landing his knee into Jihoon’s ribcage as it twists over. Jihoon laughs and lurches to the side. Being Junhui’s friend comes with a lot of spatial awareness—it has to. “I can’t believe you and Soonyoung aren’t even living close to one another, it’s like our whole family is broken up.”

“Well, we’ll have to come up with some kind of trip in a few months, so we can all see each other. Maybe for the holidays?”

Jun turns again so he’s nearly breaking Jihoon’s feet. “Okay.”

“Jesus Christ do you ever stop moving.”

“You’ve got to soak this up, because I guarantee by the time school comes back you’re going to miss me _so bad_ ,” Junhui says, extending a pointed toe and poking it back into Jihoon’s ribcage. “You’re gonna wish you had someone like me back here to annoy the shit out of you.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Jihoon says, but he’s smiling so there’s no bite. Junhui wouldn’t have thought there was anyway.

“Hey, I’m really glad we’re friends.”

“Me too, Junnie.”

“No really,” Jun says, climbing up off Jihoon’s lap (much to his relief) and settling himself on the ground next to the couch, laying parallel to Jihoon above him. He reaches up to grab Jihoon’s fingers in his long and spindly ones and play with them at a weird angle. “I know no one knows anyone in freshman year, but I really felt like a fish out of water. And you guys sort of made me feel like I was back in the water.”

“Yeah, I know,” Jihoon is smiling, letting Junhui play with his fingers.

The thing with Junhui is that he’s always pushing Jihoon to the bring of his insanity, but he never quite gets there. With Soonyoung, at least, he’s not getting on Jihoon’s nerves all the time, but with Jun it’s sort of like he’s _trying_ to annoy him. Jun will climb all over him or pick him up to swing him around, he’ll push Jihoon around like a ragdoll and Jihoon will take it and he’s not sure what it is about him that makes it bearable.

Jun and Jihoon have never gotten in any sort of fight, never seriously resented one another. Their relationship is sort of an anomaly, because with their distinct personalities and living styles and energy levels, they shouldn’t be able to _stand_ each other. And yet Junhui is one of the best friends Jihoon’s ever had.

“I’m sorry that you sort of have to start all over again.”

“We all do. But it’ll be okay, because I still have you guys, you’re just back here.”

“We’ll stay in touch. Forever, probably.”

“Yeah. We’ll have go come back together for any of our performances, or any performances back at the school anyway.”

“Yeah!”

“It’ll be basically like school.”

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet for a bit, and Jihoon thinks about the next time he’s going to be able to see Junhui, and how lucky Minghao is to be able to house him until he moves back to China, and how lucky his family is to be able to see him. He thinks about how dark the empty space Jun occupies is going to be.

He decides to stop thinking about it, at least for now. And they stop being quiet, because they’re never quiet for long, and end up watching movies in the background of their roughhousing and reminiscing.

Junhui has to go back to China the next morning, so they make the most of the day.

 

 

It’s a few days later when Jihoon knocks on the door down the hall, having eaten the pork for dinner that night, for lunch the next few days (and he doesn’t tell Mingyu this, knows he’d just walk down to Jihoon’s apartment to help him prepare literally anything else) and finishes off the rice for a snack later on. He doubts Jeonghan will be expecting him so soon.

He raps on the door, balancing the bowl in his hand clumsily. He thinks about the conversation he had with Soonyoung during lunch.

“Is he nice?”

“He seems nice, yeah,” Jihoon says, washing his dishes, the only set he has. “He seemed really interested in my internship and college and stuff, and he told me all about his job and he works with kids, which means he’s probably cool. You can’t, like, be a bad person who likes working with kids.”

“You’re probably right about that,” Soonyoung says, stretching on the floor. “I’m glad you’re making friends, though, Junhui was worried that you wouldn’t leave the house with him going back to China.”

“Why do you guys worry about me so much? I could take you all in a fight you know.”

“You’re just really independent,” Soonyoung starts, getting up off his floor and bending over at his waist, hugging his thighs. There’s a little lilt in his voice, the same teasing tone that pokes through every time Jihoon gives him an empty threat. His voice is slightly muffled as he continues. “That’s really admirable and all, but sometimes you forget to, like, go outside and buy more than one set of plates because you don’t even suspect that you’ll meet people.”

“Well I’m making a friend, okay? I made one,” the plate nearly slips out of his hand out of frustration while he dries it off with the dish rag. “You can stop worrying about me.”

“I can’t, I signed a contract to care about you. There’s nothing you can do about it,” Soonyoung says, voice strained while he stretches. He picks up the computer and carries it around to the back of the studio. He lifts a foot up on the barre to continue his warmup. Jihoon uses the time to stop the water and carry his computer back to his keyboard, where he finds comfort in just sitting instead of his couch. “So, do you think this Jeonghan kid was flirting with you?”

“God, no.”

Soonyoung looks into the camera. “Oh, is he totally straight?”

“No, but he has a boyfriend,” Jihoon says, shrugging and resigning himself. “It’s not a big deal. It’s not like I should jump into a relationship with the first guy I meet anyway. I’ll probably meet Seungcheol at some point, too, and Jeonghan says he’s pretty cool.”

“That makes sense”

“Alright are you going to show me what you choreographed or am I just going to have to stare at the back of your thigh for another hour? I think you’re warm.”

Jeonghan opens the door, and immediately lets a smile crawl along his face. It’s maddeningly contagious. There’s something about him that seems so genuine, which is probably the main reason Jihoon feels so comfortable pursuing the friendship instead of leaving the bowl on his stoop for it to get stolen.

He prides himself on being a pretty good judge of character.

“You finished it!”

“I just graduated and moved into an apartment on my own. I’m in no position to deny already-made food,” he says, deadpan.

“Hey, I’m not judging you,” Jeonghan smiles wider, throwing his hands up in defense. “Do you want to come inside? It’s only fair.”

Jihoon lets himself come in, admiring the way the space is set up. Every apartment has a similar floorplan, but the way Jeonghan has designed the space is so _beautiful_ that he finds himself standing in the doorway and just looking around at the interior.

You can probably learn a lot about someone’s personality by the way they decorate their own space.

Jihoon’s apartment is minimalistic, black rugs and records hanging off his wall of artists he admires and is inspired by. When the newness wears off it’ll start to get cluttered with finished and unfinished compositions, sticking out in scattered piles that he can make sense of. He doesn’t have a cable box, but he has a television, so he can watch movies from his computer or play music loud enough that he can hear it in the kitchen where he’ll cook (eventually, he swears). He has trinkets and gifts, a table where he’s unpacked all of his birthday cards that he keeps.

His organized chaos is specific and calculated and very representative of him as a person. It shows that he cares about his work more than anything, isn’t concerned about much else. He cares about his friends, isn’t a total loner. His room is almost empty, so he doesn’t spend all of his time in there, because he knows he will if given the chance.

These are just the things that are obvious to him.

Jeonghan’s apartment is completely different, a different kind of organized chaos. He has paintings on his walls, colorful furniture and rugs, obviously thrifted from different places without much mind paid to how things will look together.

The space where Jihoon keeps his keyboard and other composition supplies sits a big and colorful rug with a small toy chest sitting next to a keyboard of his own, evidence that little kids stay have a little place in his home. It’s sweet, even if Jihoon is glad he doesn’t have to deal with any children. It shows that Jeonghan cares, which is nice, he thinks.

Jihoon realizes that he’s been standing in the doorway of Jeonghan’s apartment for too long, but Jeonghan doesn’t seem to mind the way his eyes graze over the entire living room and kitchen area.

“You like it?”

“Yeah, it’s nice in here,” he smiles, hugging the bowl in his arms to his chest. “Thank you for the food, by the way.”

“Of course, any time. I have a lot of time on my hands lately,” Jeonghan says, reaching his hands out as an offer to take the bowl from Jihoon’s arms. “Once school comes back in session I’ll be busier, so no promises of free food come September.”

“That’s fine by me.”

“Did you want anything now, though? I have coffee and tea and stuff. If you wanted to hang out for a bit I have Netflix. Being alone all day is driving me insane, actually.”

Jihoon laughs, “I’d love a coffee, and yeah I’ll stay for a bit.”

It’s kind of appalling how transparent Jeonghan is with his emotions, admirable maybe, but mainly jarring. Jihoon’s not entirely sure what about him attracts people who are so comfortable with their emotions, where they feel like they have to be ripped from his chest while he isn’t looking. Mingyu and Soonyoung are the same way, vocal about how they feel, and even Jun, although he’s good at making people doubt it.

They sit at his couch before putting on the movie and Jeonghan is just so clear about what he’s thinking about, to the point where Jihoon finds himself talking about things that he wasn’t expecting. Words start spilling out of him, like Jeonghan is some kind of witch determined to hear his deep secrets.

Jeonghan runs his fingers through his hair, shakes it out of his face, plays with the ends of it absentmindedly. Something about it is captivating, like he really does have a spell cast over the world.

“What made you move into the city instead of back home?” It feels like an interview, the same way every conversation in freshman year of college goes—you meet someone at orientation and spend three hours in their room telling them your life story. Because you’re desperate for human connection and college is big and everyone loves to talk about themselves.

“Busan is nice and all, but it’s a little suffocating, I guess.”

“I’ve never been.”

“You should definitely visit! It’s always going to be home, you know, but I didn’t even realize how much pressure there was there until I left,” Jihoon pauses. It sounds a little cliché coming out of his mouth, but Jeonghan doesn’t comment on it, so he continues. “You know, you get close with people who are _so_ comfortable talking about their emotions and expressing them, and not being afraid to have them. I didn’t really get how repressed I was, and I kind of don’t want to go back.”

“You seem pretty fine talking about your emotions,” Jeonghan says, holding his mug in his two hands like he needs it for warmth.

“I was living with some pretty emotional people while I was in school. It rubs off on you, I guess,” and it’s a feeling he’s not quite sure how to place, because he doesn’t dwell too much on self-reflection or how he’s viewed himself over the years. There’s a little skip in his heart, though, reminding himself that he’s sort of let go of the stoicism.

“You’re a cool kid,” Jeonghan says, maybe just to get a rise out of him. It’s made clear by the way he smirks behind his mug as he takes another sip of the cool tea.

“You’re like a year older than me,” Jihoon retorts. “You can’t say that.”

“Well,” Jeonghan says, smirking and leaning back into his couch. “I’m glad you came to live here. We should hang out more, I think.”

“Yeah I might need someone to get me out of my place every once in a while. I can turn into a music goblin when I feel like it.”

Jeonghan’s smirk turns into something softer, a face that Jihoon can’t exactly read. He doesn’t say anything, though, lets his attention drift back to the movie playing on the television. They haven’t paid attention for the entire thing.

Jihoon doesn’t say anything either, lets his words hang in the air like floating lights. He doesn’t have to wonder if things are going to be like this all the time, he just knows.

 

 

It’s a Sunday in late August. Jihoon’s been living in the apartment for a little less than a month, and it’s more or less starting to get to him. It’s not the actual living part that’s hard, it’s that Jun is back in China, and Mingyu’s getting ready to go back to school, and Soonyoung’s too far to visit too easily anyway. It’s for this reason, and this reason alone, that he starts leaning on Jeonghan more.

He sits on his couch in the living room, sprawled out, separating himself from his keyboard for a bit. Composition is tiring and the only thing he’s ingested in about four days has been coffee and toast. His refrigerator is completely empty.

He may or may not be dodging Mingyu’s calls for this exact reason.

When there’s a knock on his door, it’s less jarring than the first time—it’s almost comforting, that there’s a specific knock that Jeonghan has. He doesn’t have a special tap or anything particularly unique, but the three soft raps on his door are so _Jeonghan_ that it’s no longer surprising. It’s expected, even.

When Jihoon opens the door, Jeonghan’s pouting, eyes fluttering shut, and head cocked to the side a little bit like a kicked puppy. His lower lip sticks out, and Jihoon hesitates to shut the door right back in his face in faux-frustration.

“What’s your problem?”

Jeonghan mocks offense. “You’re very mean to me.”

“I literally just opened the door!” Jihoon exasperates, turning his back to Jeonghan and the door and plops himself back on the couch. “What’s with the pouting? It doesn’t faze me as much as you think it does.”

“I have to go run errands and Seungcheol is busy.”

Jihoon, ever-apathetic, blinks slowly. “Do you want me to be your stand-in boyfriend to go shopping with you?”

“When you say it like that it sort of takes the fun out of it,” Jeonghan pushes Jihoon’s feet off the armrest so he can lean up against it. “But yes. Also, I know you need to go shopping too.”

“You don’t know that.”

“When was the last time you left here other than to go to your internship?”

Jihoon doesn’t answer, because he is perfectly enduring, and not because he doesn’t remember.

“Right, okay,” Jeonghan says, pushes himself off the armrest and glides out the door. “Get dressed and ready. Don’t make me wait too long. Also, fix your fucking clock.”

Jihoon almost responds to the slamming door but gets his things in order instead, not fighting it. He walks out of his apartment less than five minutes later with a few reusable bags, his wallet, and keys. Jeonghan is leaning against his own door with a smug look.

“I put on real pants for this, don’t look at me like that,” Jihoon says, huffing at him and walking right past. “Come on, the bus comes once every, like, 20 minutes, and I don’t want to wait that long.”

There’s a jingling right next to his ear as Jeonghan catches up. “I have a car, you dummy.”

The end up sitting in Jeonghan’s car in the parking garage of the building, Jihoon settled into the seat and Jeonghan setting up his phone to the speakers before they go out. The car is nice, there’s not a lot of space, but it’s clean, at least. “What kind of music do you listen to?”

“Hmm,” Jihoon tilts his head over to Jeonghan. “I’ll listen to anything. It’s your car, you pick.”

“You say that, but you won’t listen to _anything_ ,” Jeonghan says, challenging.

“I’ll listen to anything. I think everything has its merit, you know?”

“Yeah, but you won’t listen to, like, frog mating or whale songs.”

Jihoon snorts again, and Jeonghan makes a face (the face he always does) but lets him continue. “Those are my two favorite genres of music, actually. I’m working on a frog mating composition for my internship. They have a whole keyboard setting that I’ll have to show you.”

Jeonghan bursts into laughter, starts the car, and heads out of the garage. He puts on a playlist of girl groups, turns the music low enough that they can speak comfortably over it.

“Do you think we should go get lunch first?”

Jihoon’s stomach grumbles in response to the suggestion. “Well we’re going out to get groceries anyway.”

“No, it’s my treat, you’re obviously hungry. _And_ I know this really great barbecue restaurant,” Jihoon’s noticed that Jeonghan sometimes asks questions he’s already set on the answer to. He doesn’t mind. “Besides, you should never go grocery shopping on an empty stomach.”

For a moment it feels a little like they’re on a real date, like Jihoon’s not just his stand-in boyfriend. They’re at a stoplight and Jeonghan looks up at Jihoon like he’s the most fascinating thing in the world, like their friendship matters as much to Jeonghan as it does to him. They both hum along to the music that plays low, and Jihoon feels comfortable.

Special, even.

He pushes it straight down, looks out the window, lets his face return to its furrowed eyebrows and straight mouth. He hopes Jeonghan doesn’t notice, and if he does, he doesn’t say anything.

It does fall back a bit later on, when they’re in the restaurant, and they’re ordering, and the waiter greets them like a couple.

This is something that used to get to him before he came out—back in high school when he was worried everyone could tell what he was thinking. He’d be out with a Seongwoo, and it would feel like people just knew, even if they didn’t. Like there are eyes or cameras on him, like they can see his hesitations and the nervous click in his bones.

It’s the waiter, though, who asks if they want wine, asks them how they’re doing, and Jihoon sinks in his chair like he’s absolutely being grilled. Jeonghan answers all of the questions, which doesn’t exactly help the situation, just makes Jeonghan seem gentlemanly.

“You’re being weird,” Jeonghan shakes him out of his train of thought. “What’s going on, I feel like you’re really distracted. And here I am! Taking you out on this romantic and special dinner.”

“I don’t think I realized how hungry I was,” he says, forcing himself to stop sinking deeper into the chair, and he makes himself believe it. And it works, for the most part. When the food arrives, he starts to feel better, less guilty, less stressed out.

The thing is that everything with Jeonghan comes so easy. Everything with Jeonghan is simple, if he doesn’t let himself think about it too much. Not thinking about something too much is something he’s spent his life trying to master. Jihoon doesn’t let himself live in Jeonghan’s smile the way he wants to. He laughs at his jokes and talks to him about whatever they talk about when they’re together. He follows the moves.

He ignores the way his hand itches to reach out and brush Jeonghan’s when they walk next to each other in the grocery store. He ignores the tingle on his forearm when Jeonghan latches on to drag him to some aisle he’s excited about. It leaves a _burn_ that only he can see by the time he peels his hand away. Jeonghan’s full-bodied laugh and the way he throws himself around Jihoon’s shoulders stick with him, only leave with the shower later.

He swallows it all—he’s always been good at pushing this sort of thing down. He has to be.

After they come home, Jeonghan jumps up onto Jihoon’s counter and helps him put his food away. By the time it’s late and he’s gone, Jihoon goes straight to his room, plops straight down on his bed.

Jihoon sort of chalks this all up to not knowing much about Jeonghan’s boyfriend, like he’s an entity that doesn’t exist, that he’ll never have to meet, who’s a farce because he lives so far away. He chalks up all of his half-thoughts and projected fantasies to being just that: fantasies. He knows he has no place feeling like he really is Jeonghan’s stand-in boyfriend. If he locks it away he isn’t doing something wrong.

He doesn’t think about it.

 

 

In September, Jihoon takes his clock off the wall and sets it to the right time. Winds it up a little bit, feels the gears underneath the face move, does it almost mechanically. Just because.

This is something that Mingyu notices almost immediately the next time he walks in. They haven’t seen each other in a few weeks, Mingyu busy at school almost an hour away. But it’s a weekend and Jihoon has nothing to do, and Mingyu is ahead of his work because of course he is. Jeonghan’s been spending the past few weeks gently coaxing Jihoon out of his apartment, but now he’s busy with school as well, preparing for his classes.

Mingyu is looking through Jihoon’s cabinets for food, doesn’t mention how the uppermost ones don’t have very much in them, smirks to himself about it. Instead he grabs a bag of snacks and sits cross-legged on Jihoon’s couch.

The place has changed in more ways than just the clock. It’s become more cluttered with things that he’s acquired with time. Mingyu notices a mop in an open closet that he’s sure wasn’t there when he moved in, a few picture frames that weren’t there before—probably came in the mail from family or friends for housewarming presents.

“What’s with the clock?”

Jihoon glances at it from his seat at the keyboard. “What about it?”

“It’s _right_ ,” Mingyu says, cocking his head the side. “It’s never right.”

“I corrected it. I thought I would, you know, so I could be on time for things.”

“You’re never on time for things.”

Jihoon sort of laughs, sort of snorts, mainly swallows a “you’re right.”

“I guess you’re an adult now, huh?” He pouts a little bit, his lips restless and pressing against each other. “You just seem so settled in all of a sudden. I feel like I’ve missed so much. I miss you, man.”

Something deep, deep inside of Jihoon twinges. Although he’s definitely come a long way since living with his parents, in terms of his ability to accept affection and talk about his emotions, he’s convinced the resistance will always be there. It’s just Mingyu, someone he’s never really had a problem with (maybe to a fault), but a little bit of his heart always fights back. He bites through it.

“I miss you too.” It really helps that he means it.

It’s a relief that Jihoon is relatively practiced in hiding his emotions, and that Mingyu is one of the most positive people Jihoon’s ever met. Mingyu sits, squinting his eyes at the sun that comes through the curtains, looking almost exactly like a retriever. That look is one of the very best parts about being Mingyu’s friend. “Well then we’ll make an effort to hang out more. Have you gotten the chance to hang out with the others?”

“Soonyoung hasn’t gotten the chance to visit since the move, but we Skype all the time. I can’t really do the same with Junhui, but we talk a lot. You’re the only one that I kind of get to see.”

“It’s not fair that you all had to graduate at the same time and all move so far away right after.”

“Well when you, Seokmin, and Minghao all graduate maybe you can move closer.”

“Oh yeah, we already have plans to,” Mingyu says.

“But, also, enjoy your last year, okay?”

It isn’t often that he talks down to Mingyu, gives him advice. It sticks like peanut butter to the roof of his mouth, gets caught in his throat. He bites past that too.

It’s just that things are so different now, living alone, every time he thinks too hard about how this is his life now, this is how things are, this is what he has to wake up every day to, it stings. He doesn’t have Mingyu or Soonyoung or Jun at his beck and call, doesn’t even have them against his own will. Sometimes, when he wakes up late and can’t get out of bed, there’s a memory of his three best friends barging into his room to check on him.

He doesn’t have that anymore.

In some ways, it is a relief. This is what he tells himself at least, that at least he doesn’t have to be constantly surrounded by people, at least there isn’t always so much noise bouncing off of every wall for hours after he’s been left alone. He tells himself this.

And maybe that’s why he’s taken to Jeonghan so much. Maybe it’s because he’s the only friend in the area, the only friend he’s made since moving (because _how_ to you make friends as an adult without the structure of a required attendance at a learning environment or the common age range in an entire school full of people doing exactly what you’re doing), maybe it’s that Jeonghan gives him the exact right type of affection and attention that he needs. Because there _are_ days where Jihoon would rather do anything than be alone.

He says that’s why he’s taken to him. He makes himself believe it.

Jihoon barely notices Mingyu’s response, his promise. They both sit in silence for a bit, and it’s comfortable, it always is. Jihoon leans an elbow on his keyboard, pushes some lint off the keys and presses down with no order or reason.

“What’ve you been working on?” Mingyu’s voice is tentative, cuts through the silence gently.

“Mainly just internship stuff, do you wanna hear?”

Mingyu perks up again. Jihoon likes it better that way.

He starts playing, something he’s had to play for weeks now but hasn’t really shown anyone yet outside of his job. He was asked to compose some music to promote the music program he’s been accepted into. It’s upbeat and poppy, something he really enjoys, and he hopes it comes across well.

Music has always been an escape for him, and composition is something he started teaching himself ages before he got accepted into the university he met all his friends at. He felt so much accomplishment just learning by himself that when it came time to pick a career, he knew exactly what he wanted to do, and the environment where he was able to learn was even better. Everyone was impeccable at something or another, artistically, and the comradery was something so welcome to him. It feels so nice to create something without competition attached to it, something that he makes just so people can enjoy it.

Jihoon is a romantic, in that way. A romantic in that he loves to see the little things and love them and enjoy them and loves for others to do the same.

Mingyu is a big part of this process for him, the way he is so intuitive and responsive and genuinely supportive, even now, even after he’s graduated, even after probably so many people have forgotten about him, is something he’s grateful for. He sometimes is afraid he’s easy to replace. He doesn’t know if he’d say it out loud, though.

He doesn’t say a lot of things out loud.

When he’s done with the piece that he’s been working on for his internship, it sort of flows into something different, something that’s been playing in the back of his mind for a while. It doesn’t have a distinct rhythm or anything, just some notes that won’t stop dancing circles around him.

Sometimes hanging out with Mingyu is just like this. He’ll be playing some song on his keyboard and Mingyu will lie there, playing games on his phone or looking at Instagram or doing whatever he does, and it feels exactly like home. They can just be quiet together.

For a fraction of a second, Jihoon feels like it’s sophomore year, when Mingyu would spend hours in his on-campus apartment, and they would listen to music, and only communicate through their heartbeats until he would go back to his dorm, and Jihoon would think about how it would feel if Mingyu wrapped himself around him.

He doesn’t think about any of that, either.

He spends more time not thinking about things than anything, now.

 

 

 “I just didn’t like their latest comeback as much as everyone else did,” Jeonghan is saying, practically stuffing himself with chicken dip.

Jihoon draws his face into something like a scowl. “But that shouldn’t mean you can’t recognize that it’s good. Do you at least think it’s _good_?”

“I guess, but I think they hype ruined it for me,” Jeonghan shrugs. His head falls onto Jihoon’s shoulder and Jihoon takes deep breaths, doesn’t disturb the hairs as they rest, feather-like, cascading down his back.

“So you’re a snob.”

Jeonghan is about to be offended by this, but he’s interrupted by a knock at the door, and his face absolutely lights up. It does something very quick and very violent to something very deep in Jihoon’s chest. He considers getting that checked out later.

“Ah! Cheollie,” Jeonghan says, absolutely delighted, when he glides his way to the front door. “Jihoon’s here!”

Seungcheol is kind of broad and kind of a jock, and when he leans over the threshold to wave at Jihoon, his gentle and excited smile makes Jihoon want the couch to swallow him entirely.

He thinks it would be so much easier to not think about this if he were a supervillain-type. Jihoon secretly hoped Seungcheol would crawl into the room with his teeth bared and claws out, angry and immature and not good enough for Jeonghan, and Jihoon could feel some sort of sick righteousness at how Jeonghan deserves _better;_ that he could _give_ him better.

“It’s nice to meet you!” Seungcheol stays instead, lighting up. He leans forward with an outstretched hand to shake Jihoon’s. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Oh?” Jihoon tries to mask his surprise as something less obvious.

“Yeah, well you and Jeonghan spend a lot of time together. I’m busy a lot, I’m glad he has someone to be with and give him company. And I feel like I know so much about you.”

Jihoon laughs a little bit at that, relaxes into the couch. Maybe he can be important even if he’s not—whatever.

“Oh, like what?” Jihoon’s entire chest feels like it might collapse, turn into dust that gets caught in the couch. He can feel it happening, too. It feels absolutely asinine—of course Jeonghan would talk about him, they’re friends.

“He says you’re a talented composer,” Seungcheol starts, leaning an elbow into the back of the couch, smiling. “And a horrible cook.”

Seungcheol seems just so genuine. Guilt bubbles underneath Jihoon.

“Well,” he says, pushing through. “He’s never heard my work, because I don’t show anyone. And I haven’t cooked for him either, so I think he might be lying to you.”

“No, he’s bad at that,” Seungcheol looks around a bit. Jihoon wishes he could find something about him to dislike. He hates himself a bit for wishing something like that. “You’ll know how he feels about you. He’s sort of an open book.”

“How did you two get together?”

“It was almost three years ago. We were in the same bullshit class in university and sort of hit it off. Became fast friends, that kind of thing,” Seungcheol says, voice small but smile warm.

“That’s really nice,” Jihoon says. “I’m glad you guys have each other.”

Seungcheol doesn’t respond right away, looks off into the direction of Jeonghan’s room. “I’m glad he has you, too.”

Jeonghan has been kicking around in his room while they’ve been talking, putting on real pants and probably brushing his hair. Jihoon can hear him in the back making noise, smiles fondly. Jihoon and Seungcheol sit in silence for a moment to listen to it. Jihoon tries not to let guilt or tenderness wipe him out completely.

Seungcheol says, just as enamored by Jeonghan’s loud antics. “He knows we’re just going out to dinner. I’m not even that dressed up, he shouldn’t be so excessive.”

“I think that’s just what he’s like.”

Jeonghan emerges from around the corner, putting his hair into a nice low braid. Jihoon’s motor functions take a brief pause when he sees him. “Are you guys talking shit about me?”

“We’re talking about how long you take to get ready actually,” Seungcheol says, eyes lighting up. “I think you’re so overdressed. This is so unnecessary. Look at me.”

“You look very handsome.”

Jihoon and Seungcheol both get up. Jihoon takes a turn towards the door and Seungcheol takes a turn towards Jeonghan, grabbing him by the waist and planting a gentle kiss on his forehead. It’s so sweet that Jihoon has to look away.

“I’ll see you tomorrow to go shopping, yeah?” Jihoon says, stepping out. “It was nice meeting you, Seungcheol.”

“You too!” Seungcheol calls out. It echoes in his ears like the beginning of a cold.

Jihoon shuts his door a little loudly when he enters his own apartment, turns off his phone, lays in the dark. He considers calling Mingyu or Soonyoung, force them to bring him alcohol to drink or a man to fuck or honestly anything that will get his mind off of this entire situation.

Guilt creeps his way through his veins, crawls into his throat and sits there so he can’t breathe. He doesn’t know what time he falls asleep, but it comes eventually.

 

 

Jihoon honestly means to spend some time away from Jeonghan after sitting with it for a while, after meeting Seungcheol and liking him, after maybe recognizing that there are things you can’t ignore. After realizing that maybe it’s unfair for him to have any feelings at all.

He considers going back to his old way of thinking, of living, thinks back to how he used to be in high school when everything felt daunting and high-stakes. But at least back then he could shut down his feelings, really ignore them, really didn’t even have them.

It’s not that easy anymore. Perhaps that’s a blessing, though he doesn’t always see it as one. He blames it on Mingyu. Mingyu’s big and easy to blame and always there, always helping him improve, never even on purpose. Bastard.

Jihoon thinks maybe he needs space. This proves to be more difficult than he thinks it will be, though. Jeonghan is his only friend in the area, the only person he knows in the building, and the only person who offers to hang out with him anymore.

The day after Jihoon meets Seungcheol, Jeonghan knocks on Jihoon’s door, because that’s the day they go out to get groceries. And Jihoon goes, because of course he does. And so on, they keep hanging out, and it keeps being normal, it has to keep being normal, and Jihoon has to get over it.

If he never tells anyone, it’s not real. If he ignores it, it’s not real.

Jeonghan will come up in conversation when he talks to Soonyoung, stretching, preparing to dance, and he’ll crack a joke about how Jeonghan begins to act more and more like Jihoon’s boyfriend. Mingyu, who hasn’t met Jeonghan yet, will go on sometimes about secret boyfriends or secret crushes (which stings in more ways than one). Junhui, who Jihoon only gets to talk to once in a blue moon, even says something about it whenever he comes up. And of course he comes up, of course he does.

Jeonghan always seems to be there, a reliable presence. It only makes it worse.

Jeonghan knocks on his door one night, way later than he’s ever come over. The only reason Jihoon is even awake this late is because his piece for the internship just went through a critique, and he’s spent hours and hours fixing it at his keyboard, volume down as not to wake the neighbors.

He hears the three gentle knocks at his door in between keys, fingers heavy with exhaustion, barely sure if it’s even real. The clock reads that it’s nearly three in the morning. He’s grateful, at least, that his clock isn’t slow anymore to give him more of a heart attack. Sometimes Jeonghan is right, he thinks.

By the time he gets to the door, Jeonghan has turned around, slippers sticking to the tile outside the threshold.

“Hey, it’s almost three in the morning, dude,” Jihoon says, softly, wiping sleep from his eyes.

Jeonghan turns around, and Jihoon nearly has to take a step back. His eyes are puffed up and red and _raw_ —he looks like he’s been run over. He’s wearing a gigantic sweater that swallows him, makes his dainty frame look even smaller.

“What’s going on?” Jihoon backs up so that Jeonghan can amble stiffly inside. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen from him.

Jeonghan waits until he’s seated comfortably on the couch, knees drawn into his chest hidden under his sweater, before he speaks, voice sticky and dry. He doesn’t make direct eye contact for a while, just sits by Jihoon’s side, head resting back on the chair.

“Seungcheol left me.”

It hangs there for a moment, and Jihoon doesn’t really know what to think about it. At first instinct, he’s confused. Not only because he has no idea why anyone would leave Jeonghan, especially like this, but also because he _met_ Seungcheol. Jihoon watched as the fire behind Seungcheol’s eyes lit up at the sight of Jeonghan or the idea of Jeonghan or at the prospect of being able to be with Jeonghan.

It was too familiar.

“He did what?” Jihoon tries not to be glaringly aghast, but it’s three in the morning, and his exhaustion makes his usual mask start to struggle.

“He doesn’t,” Jeonghan starts, looking down at his thumbs and picking around the nail. He hiccups through the sentence. “He doesn’t love me anymore.”

It’s all coming very slow into Jihoon’s brain. He responds mechanically. “How do you know that? Did he say he didn’t love you anymore?”

“He just doesn’t feel it anymore, I think.”

It can’t be that.

“Do you want something to drink?”

Jihoon gets up fast, eyes dead-set on the water pitcher in his fridge. There’s not a lot he understands about emotions, even less about heartbreak. There are things that can be fixed and there are things that can’t. It’s always been like this for him—friends would come to him with their breakups and relationship problems and he never _ever_ understood what they were talking about, never understood why it would be hard. If you’re not together anymore, there’s a reason for it. Tears don’t change things, only time does. It _seems_ pretty straightforward.

Maybe he’s never had his heart that broken before, though. Not really.

He’s about to walk past Jeonghan, when his frozen hand wraps itself around his forearm, stopping him.

“Where are you going?” His voice is nasally and sopping wet, eyes turned down on the outside like a caricature of sadness. “I don’t want anything.”

“You should get some water,” he says, and pulls away. Jeonghan follows him, little beads on his slippers sticking to the kitchen tiles, moving with Jihoon at every step. He climbs onto the chair he sat in the first time Jeonghan pushed his way into Jihoon’s house, table wobbling under his heavy arms.

The silence is weird. It’s not natural silence that usually rests between them. It doesn’t move around, it sits musty around the entire apartment, gathers dust, he can’t see through it. Jihoon can’t really bring himself to look up at Jeonghan at all. He wishes an open window would help, but they’re already open and he can’t even hear wind pushing its way through. The only sounds in the apartment are the flickering yellow light in the refrigerator and Jeonghan’s muffled sobs into his gigantic sweater.

“Drink,” he says, pressing a cup of water gently into the back of Jeonghan’s hand. “When did this all happen? You must be dehydrated by now.”

It takes a moment but Jeonghan takes the cup, takes little sips, pauses to sputter, for his chest to convulse just a little bit every few seconds. He never answers Jihoon’s question, Jihoon never presses further.

They sit in the dark, lamp by Jihoon’s keyboard and light above the stove the only lights in the apartment that are on. It’s silent for a long while. Jihoon lays a gentle hand on Jeonghan’s wrist outside his sweater, doesn’t move it, just lets it sit. Jeonghan looks down at the water, lets tears fall un-interrupted from his open eyes, darted into the counter. The clock, barely lit, moves slowly, and Jihoon’s eyelids only get heavier.

“You’re tired,” Jeonghan says, after a while.

“I’m fine.”

“I should go home.”

Jihoon hesitates. He looks at Jeonghan, really looks at him. He surveys his entire drowning body, only thinks about it for a second. He slides his hand down so he can grab Jeonghan’s, pulls gently towards his bedroom. It’s not pristine, it never is, but it’s clean enough, and the bed is made. He pulls back the covers and rests Jeonghan in a little nest before covering him back up.

Jihoon considers for a moment getting out of the clothes he’s worn all day but decides against it. He cracks open the window on the off chance that air will decide to pass through and lays next to Jeonghan on top of the covers, pulls him into his chest, lets him cry.

Half-asleep, Jeonghan tells him what happened, and Jihoon only manages to understand what’s not waterlogged and garbled into his shirt or the pillow or through the sleep that’s like cotton in his ears.

“He just fell out of love with me, just like that. Out of nowhere, for no reason. How can someone be so sure something isn’t working that they just turn their feelings right off?”

“I don’t know,” Jihoon says, intermittently, not asleep, not even close, into the top of Jeonghan’s head. He considers pressing a kiss into it.

And it’s not entirely true, what he says, because he’s had plenty of experience in shutting his emotions off, just not lately. He just doesn’t know anything. Least of all how to help.

“He said it was a long time coming. That’s not fair, either. I deserve to be in the loop.”

“You do,” Jihoon says after a while, after letting the words worm their way to his brain. “You deserve the world.”

He’s half asleep when he says it. It’s the latest at night when the truth finds its way out, when you’re too tired to breathe, too tired to lie, too tired to tone down what you feel. It escapes from him like a fish writhing from a net, wiggles its way out. He only hopes Jeonghan is tired enough not to read into it.

“Thank you for listening to me, Jihoon. I know you don’t have any real emotions, but I really love you.”

“I love you too.”

 

 

The next few days are particularly hard, because Jeonghan spends most of his time in Jihoon’s apartment, drowning in sweaters even though it’s not that cold out, barely eating, barely laughing, someone else entirely. It digs so deep under Jihoon’s skin there’s not much stopping him from wrapping Jeonghan’s heart up in little bandages himself.

The things that stop him are: the fear that Jeonghan will find out how he feels, the fear that Jeonghan will think he’s taking advantage of him, and his complete inability to get a proper grasp on his own emotions.

So Jeonghan goes through the stages of grief and Jihoon watches, usually silently, usually holds his hand, pets his hair, offers him food or drink. It’s really more than he’s used to, like a part of his brain is shut off, the part that knows how to show affection, maybe.

The crying stops after a few days, and one afternoon when Jihoon doesn’t have his internship and evidently Jeonghan doesn’t have work either, there’s a familiar knock on his front door. Jihoon’s come to expect Jeonghan standing out front with a blanket wrapped around him or wearing no pants, or with some other new and exciting appearance. Today Jeonghan is carrying a pair of scissors.

“I’m cutting it all off.”

Jihoon blinks.

“I mean _you’re_ cutting it all off," he makes a half-gesture towards his hair.

 “Why?”

“I think it’s time for me to reinvent myself,” Jeonghan says with a smile that seems genuine on the surface but has a little bite to it. “It’s a new chapter.”

“There are professionals who do this,” Jihoon says, “for a living. Professionally, people do this.”

Jeonghan’s already in Jihoon’s apartment, dragging a kitchen stool to the bathroom, not waiting for Jihoon to follow. “Yes, but professionals cost money, and you are an artist.”

“I’m a composer. Barely.”

“Oh, don’t say that. You’re a composer semi-professionally, and as a pianist you have nimble fingers,” Jeonghan is sitting up in front of Jihoon’s bathroom sink, posture perfect, smiling into the mirror. “And I trust you.”

Jihoon hopes he’s far enough away that Jeonghan can’t hear his heart skip. “Fine. You’re dumb as hell, but fine.”

“Besides, it’s just hair. I never liked it anyway. And if I did, it’ll grow back,” Jeonghan passes Jihoon the pair of scissors, hand steady, very relaxed, almost normal.

Jihoon takes them in spite of himself like a loaded gun. “What do you mean you never liked it anyway?”

“It was always just in the way, I guess,” he says, somber. “People always said it looked nice long, so I kept it like that.”

Jihoon doesn’t respond to that, but he affixes the scissors in his fingers the way they’re meant to be held, takes a good handful of Jeonghan’s hair, and makes eye contact with Jeonghan in the mirror before taking the first cut. Jeonghan doesn’t look nearly as nervous as Jihoon feels, which helps, although it feels a little bit like one or both of them is having a highly serious breakdown that they should probably talk about before going after each other with scissors.

Silence is okay too.

Jihoon cuts his hair quietly, and Jeonghan pulls out his phone and plays some music, the kind you listen to for days and weeks after a bad breakup—the kind of music that’s angry and sad and so cathartic that it almost feels fitting for Jihoon to be cutting Jeonghan’s hair in his bathroom at four in the afternoon. Jihoon almost feels the anger as well, lets the irony of the lyrics race through his body—as if he’s loved and lost, as if he’s lost something that great.

He doesn’t think about losing Jeonghan, not really, just focuses on the way his smile gets bigger and brighter with every cut, thinks about how this was a good idea. It helps that this is the first time he’s gotten to see him smile in too long.

Jihoon doesn’t know when it started, but where he is now, he would do anything to make Jeonghan happy.

The haircut doesn’t look that bad, and Jihoon makes Jeonghan promise that they’ll get it retouched professionally, because he’s definitely not going so be starting up a haircutting business. Jeonghan’s smile is so bright it almost makes him want to.

“I’m gonna go home really quick to shower and get changed, but we should stay in tonight, watch sappy movies and get drunk. I feel like a new man, I think,” Jeonghan says. “Thank you so much.”

Jeonghan presses a sloppy kiss on the top of Jihoon’s head before heading out, leaving Jihoon to sweep up the mess he left in his bathroom.

An hour later without a knock but rather just a rumble with the handle, in walks Jeonghan holding a bottle of red wine.

“You want to get wine drunk?” Jihoon stares at the bottle, because of course Jeonghan wants to get wine drunk, because they’re watching a sappy movie about how maybe love exists after all even to those who don’t believe in it, and because Jeonghan just cut all of his hair off, and because this feels very dramatic and very much like they need to be wine drunk to fully appreciate it.

Jeonghan just shakes the bottle with a smile and they put on the movie before they even start to drink.

The apartment smells like wine after a little bit. Jihoon’s reminded of Mingyu’s date nights with Minghao, two people who actually have taste. Instead, Jeonghan is all limbs, sprawled out over Jihoon, laughing with his entire body, drinking wine straight out of the bottle, and talking over the movie. Jihoon much prefers this, he thinks.

It’s when they start to sober up a little bit, when they’re on the sequel of the movie that they found illegally online after nearly a half hour of drunken searching, when the bottle of wine was finished ages ago, and they’re quiet and becoming very aware of themselves and of the room that they’re in, when things start to change.

“I think I’m happy,” Jeonghan says after a while, out of nowhere and everywhere. The thick slosh of wine in the back of his throat is gone, he just sounds relaxed. “I mean I think I can be happy, at least. You know? I have the freedom to do things. Whatever I want, even.”

“That’s good,” Jihoon looks over at Jeonghan and surveys him. “But it’s okay not to be happy, too. You and Seungcheol only broke up a week ago.”

“I know.”

“You’re making a lot of changes and that’s really good too, but not everything has to change so you can be happy. It doesn’t have to be okay right away.”

“I know.”

“You were happy before you and Seungcheol got together too.”

Jeonghan doesn’t respond to that one right away. Maybe he doesn’t know. Or maybe Jihoon says too much.

“What about you?”

“What about me?” Jihoon can only hear the deep beating of his heart, and Jeonghan’s soft breathing, and the gentle click of the second hand on the clock. The movie has almost faded into the background, doesn’t exist, doesn’t matter. “Am I happy?”

“Yeah.”

It takes a second before he can respond. “I think so. I’m doing what I love with the internship. And things aren’t that bad, money-wise. I don’t have much to complain about.”

“Do you ever get lonely?”

“Yeah,” Jihoon blinks, “I guess sometimes.”

“Does that keep you from being happy? Being lonely, I mean.” Jeonghan’s voice disappears when he’s finished with each word. It’s light and gets carried away with the sound of the movie.

“I guess I know how to be alone,” Jihoon says, which is true for the most part. He knows how to be alone in his apartment without waiting for his friends to come check up on him. He knows how to give people space, he knows how to ask for attention for himself. Being alone isn’t a burden or a deep fear the way it used to be. And it’s also not what he needs anymore either. “I think I can be alone without being lonely.”

“I don’t think I know how to do that.”

Jihoon looks down, smiling a little bit beside himself. “It takes practice,” he says.

It’s a little bitter in his mouth, the aftermath of the wine maybe, and Jeonghan is close to him all of a sudden, like he’s sprung up with an idea. He’s not sure what he’s expecting, but Jeonghan lays a warm hand flat on his chest, and leans in.

He stutters for a moment, just a quick one, where his eyebrows draw in together, maybe like he’s sorry that Jihoon is lonely, or maybe he means he's sorry too, or maybe he’s asking for permission to press his dry lips against Jihoon’s, but he does it either way. Jihoon’s unsure if his permission is written on his face, or if it's just awe.

The pulsing in Jihoon’s ears have stopped entirely, the only thing he can hear is the rough expel of air from Jeonghan’s nose, only thing he can feel is his chapped and swollen lips against his own, the hand on his chest deep enough to sink through is ribcage and grasp his burning heart. He doesn’t have time to kiss back.

“I’m sorry,” Jeonghan says, before he pulls back, lips sticking together like they know where they want to be. His eyebrows are still tense like he’s worried or upset and Jihoon would do anything to make the look on his face go away.

Jihoon lifts so he’s kneeling in front of him, raises a hand so it rests softly on the nape of his neck. He really feels the hairs sticking straight out, not completely dry yet after however many hours. It sends chills down his own spine, looking desperately into his eyes like they’re doing something more intimate than just looking at each other.

He doesn’t know what prompts him to do it—maybe it’s the wine or the breakup or the adrenaline of new experiences, or maybe because he doesn’t want to be alone. With more than a second of thought it’s because all those times he’s decided not to think about it have come together like this and he’s tired of it.

“It’s alright,” he says. “Right?” Jeonghan nods.

And he guides Jeonghan’s body against his own, starting with their lips, actually kissing him right, the both of them fighting for the same air. This time they’re soft on his tongue, and his free hand travels down the length of Jeonghan’s back, sweaty from drinking for hours in the shitty apartment with no damn central air conditioning.

They’re flush with each other, and Jeonghan falls back, one hand on Jihoon’s ass like it lives there, pressing their hips against each other, opening his mouth deeper into the kiss.

It  _feels_  loud. They’re just kissing but it’s the only sound in the entire world. Everyone on earth must be able to hear the clanging of their teeth, the way their hearts pump violent waves, the way it sounds when Jeonghan is out of breath underneath him. God knows it’s the only thing he’s ever going to be able to hear again.

“Jihoon,” Jeonghan says, breathy, like his words are forcing their way out of him, like letting anything other than a moan escape  _aches_  him.

“Yeah?” He says, debates pulling back.

“You know, you have a bed,” Jeonghan’s laughing a little, still breathing hard.

It hits him, then, that this isn’t what he wants. And that it’s not what Jeonghan wants, either.

Jihoon nods and it’s almost mechanical, like he’s snapped out of something, like the gears in his head have come to a grinding halt, like they’re scraping against each other with considerable effort. And now all of the loudness in the world is coming from the echoing on his head, of marble scraping against marble, of the creaking in his joints when he stands up, Jeonghan’s palm placed firmly on his ass as they head in the direction of Jihoon’s bedroom.

It’s a lot like the week before, when Jeonghan was so upset that he couldn’t move, and it plays back in Jihoon’s mind. And for once he lets himself think about it, what he’s been avoiding thinking about for weeks now, months maybe— and maybe Jeonghan’s picked up on it, too.

Jihoon’s hand comes back to take Jeonghan’s, so their palms are flush with each other the way their bodies were, like they wanted to be, only not really. The air is starting to wear thin again, wrapping around them, and even Jeonghan stops squeezing his hand so tight.

The lights are off in the room, the only light coming from the moon and orange streetlights outside, distant enough so they’re not blinding. There’s a cast of that light onto the bed, and the two of them take up that space, Jihoon’s short arms somehow wrapping all the way around Jeonghan’s lanky body.

They don’t talk at all, but Jeonghan breathes into Jihoon’s chest again and again, and both of their heartbeats slow down, and Jihoon actually lets himself think, for once, about what he wants, and what he needs.

He doesn’t know what it is, but he doesn’t think it’s this.

 

**Author's Note:**

> In case there was any confusion, I wanted to clarify that originally this fic was going to be inspired by Writer In The Dark, but I decided the tone was something way darker than what I wanted for this fic. About halfway through writing I switched my song to Hard Feelings/Loveless, whose inspiration will become more clear in part two!
> 
> I have so many people to thank for this STARTING with the jukebox mods, but this fic isn't even done yet, so I'll have a lot more to say once this is over. I did want to say thank you though, for understanding what happened this week and why I had to split this up into two chapters... I hope everyone enjoys this first half!
> 
> In the meantime, follow me on twitter @chwesbian for updates.


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